Sitting down for a minute to share

We've been SO busy lately! Every day has been about as busy as my last blog entry. We got the chicks into the chicken tractor.

We got a few more garden plots dug up.

I planted hollyhocks and cosmos along the side of the house. We processed a bunch of produce. We found the grapevines and wove them onto a trellis. We dug a fire pit and roasted marshmallows. We mowed until we dropped each day, between lovely, gentle rain showers.

We wrapped up school for the year. We planned Toby's summer semester. We took a trip out to the old cabin and took pictures, but not many because the mosquitoes were vicious! (My mom planted all those evergreens.) It smelled like camping. It sounded like the middle of nowhere. And buzzing mosquitoes. It was just as it should've been.
We stopped to smell the lilacs every chance we got.

I've had entire days when I couldn't stop smiling. I'm thankful for this season. It's been a long time coming.

Our next plans are to finish putting in the garden, harvest some rhubarb, enjoy the three big kids' performances in Jack and the Beanstalk, put up a new clothesline, rework the shade garden and finish planting in it, roast marshmallows, celebrate birthdays and Father's Day and the first day of summer, start school again, sign the kids up for swimming lessons and summer classes at the school, mail school books to appropriate people, and stop and smell the roses every chance we get.